The Liberals’ Corruption of the Workers

Published:Put PravdyNo. 9, January 31, 1914.

      Signed:K. T..

      Published according to the text inPut Pravdy.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1972,

      Moscow,Volume 20,

      pages90-92.Translated:Bernard Isaacs and The Late Joe FinebergTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Theboycott, or rather the frothy radical chatter that is
increasingly becoming the sole content of liquidator writings, often
obscures from the reader theprinciplesunderlying liquidator
propaganda. That is exactly what the liberal-labour politicians are
after—that amidst the din, hullabaloo, and fireworks of radical claptrap
the workers should more easily swallow bourgeois platitudesagainstthe Marxist organisation.

Butclass-conscious workers will not be deceived by the rantings of
sham “political campaigns” launched by the disruptors of the workers’
organisation. What class-conscious workers appreciate most of all and first
of all in every press organ is adherence to high principle. What are the
workers really being taught under cover of the “opposition” claptrap,
clamour and claims to defend the interests of the workers?—that is the
main, the basic and, properly speaking, the only important question that
every thinking worker asks himself. The thinking worker knows that the most
dangerous of advisers are those liberal friends of the workers who claim to
be defending their interests, but are actually trying to destroy the class
independence of the proletariat and its organisation.

Itis therefore our bounden duty to open the workers’ eyes to the
manner in which the liquidators are destroying the organisation. Take, for
example, the programmatic leading article in the New Year’s issue of the
liquidators’ organ. We are told:

“Theworking class is heading towards a political party
   of the proletariat, which will function openly and be sufficiently powerful
   and broad to resist the efforts of any political regime to deprive it of
   all rights, to deprive it of the possibility of fulfilling its normal
   functions of political leadership.”

“Theworking class is heading towards a political party
   of the proletariat, which will function openly and be sufficiently powerful
   and broad to resist the efforts of any political regime to deprive it of
   all rights, to deprive it of the possibility of fulfilling its normal
   functions of political leadership.”

Thereyou have an example of “normal” liberal claptrap in
all its glory! No sensible liberal would refuse to raise both hands in
favour of this splendid formula, by means of which the liquidator newspaper
tries toconcealthe fact that it is “heading” and striving
towards the destruction of everything the proletariat has during the last
twenty years achieved in the way of Marxist organisation, at the cost of so
much effort.

Furtheron it is still more candid:

“Theroad to the open political party of action is also
   the road to Party unity.”

“Theroad to the open political party of action is also
   the road to Party unity.”

Ithas been stated thousands and thousands of times, in the most formal
and most solemn declarations, stated as far back as 1908 and 1910, that
this kind of talk is tantamount to renouncing, to liquidating, the
past. But the liquidators, nothing daunted, go on harping on the same theme
in the hope of deceiving some terribly ignorant people with their outcries
about “unity”.

Traitorsto the entire Marxist past clamouring about an “open
party”—and “unity”!... Why, this is an insult to the class-conscious
workers. It is an insult even to the “August” Conference of 1912, at
which a handful of naive people believed that the liquidators had abandoned
the shameful liberal slogan of an open party.

Butthe whole point is that this gang of liberal hacks, all those
F.D.’s, Gammas, L.M.’s, Em-El’s,
Rakitins,[1]etc., etc., are wagingtheirliberal campaign to
destroy the Marxist organisation, deliberately flouting the resolutions of
both 1908 and 1910, and trying to deceive the non-class-conscious
workers. They think there are still ignorant people about, who will believe
their promises of an “open party” and fail to see (hat this is simply a
variety of the liberal campaign against the existence of the genuine
Marxist organisation! And whilst there are ignorant people about, this
handful of liberal hacks, who seek to liquidate the past, will continue
their dirty work, no matter how many times they are told that “unity”
with these disruptors and disorganisers is an absurdity and a fraud.

TheNew Year “leaderist” of the liquidator newspaper does not stand
alone. He is backed by all the liquidators,Mr. P. Karpov, for example, who, in issue No. 5 (123) ofNovaya
Rabochaya Gazeta, assures us that

“overcoming[all the obstacles that are put in the way
   of organising workers’ congresses] is nothing more nor less than a genuine
   struggle for freedom of association, i. e., for the legalisation of the
   working-class movement, which is closely linked with the struggle for the
   open existence of the workers’ Social-Democratic Party”.

“overcoming[all the obstacles that are put in the way
   of organising workers’ congresses] is nothing more nor less than a genuine
   struggle for freedom of association, i. e., for the legalisation of the
   working-class movement, which is closely linked with the struggle for the
   open existence of the workers’ Social-Democratic Party”.

Noliberal or even Octobrist will deny sympathy with the struggle for
the legalisation of the working-class movement! No liberal will utter a
sound of protest against an “open party”; he will even support those who
advocate it as his best accomplices in fooling the workers.

Infulfilment of our duty, we shall never tire of repeating to the
class-conscious workers that advocacy of an open workers’ party is empty
liberal chatter, designed to corrupt the workers and to destroy the Marxist
organisation. The lattercannotexist and grow unless a determined
and relent less struggle is waged against those who are directing all their
efforts towards destroying the Marxist organism, into which the upsurge of
the last two years has infused new and healthy blood.

[1]F.D.,Gamma,L. M.,Em-El,Rakitin—pseudonyms =

of Mensheviks, viz.F. D.—F. I. Dan;GammaandL. M.—L. Martov (Y. 0.  Tsederbaum);Em-El—M. Y. Lukomsky, andRakitin—V. Levitsky
(V. 0. Tsederbaum).